After more than a year of political jostling and protest marches and rising expectations, legislation to give the District full voting rights on the House floor is dead: finished, over, kaput. It died this week with barely a whimper.
Let’s deconstruct what might have been the last chance to get complete congressional representation for 500,000 disenfranchised Americans. Some politicians screwed up, got outmaneuvered, made poor decisions. Who’s to blame?
Here’s what Rep. Steny Hoyer, majority leader and voting bill champion, had to say: “There is not a consensus among the leadership of the District of Columbia on this issue as I understand it. And as a result of there not being consensus, I don’t think we’re going to be able to move the bill at this point in time.”
Notice Hoyer did not finger the National Rifle Association. Legislation to give D.C. a vote in the House seemed to be sailing toward passage when a senator added an amendment that would have wiped out local gun control and put the District under federal gun regulation. Hoyer blamed “the leadership” of D.C. because it split over whether to accept the bill with the gun amendment, or reject it with the gun clause.
Here’s how they split:
» Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Council Chairman Vince Gray, D.C. judiciary committee Chairman Phil Mendelson and Michael Brown, who chairs the “self-determination” committee, refused to accept the bill with the gun control language.
» Mayor Adrian Fenty, finance committee Chairman Jack Evans and Ward 1 member Jim Graham would have accepted the bill with the gun language: “We should have taken the bill, gotten the vote and worried about the onerous amendment in the future,” Evans told me. “This is a lost opportunity. It will not happen again.”
As a voteless Washingtonian, I come down squarely with Fenty, Evans and Graham. Get the vote now, and worry about the gun laws later. Wake up to the fact that the streets of the capital are inundated with guns, despite decades of regulation under the most stringent ban in the nation. The Supreme Court knocked down the ban; neither Congress nor the courts will let D.C. reregulate. Many states now rely on federal gun laws rather than their own regulations.
As it stands, under limited Home Rule, Congress can strike down any law or budget passed by D.C. Every law is subject to review. If Norton and Gray had accepted the gun amendment, D.C. would have gotten full standing in Congress and been able to truly govern itself, without meddling. Moreover, our delegate would have had greater clout and seniority in committees and the House floor. With a vote comes power and the ability to make laws and direct funds to D.C.
The quartet of Norton, Gray, Mendelson and Brown have tossed away all those opportunities. Let’s be clear: The moment during which D.C. could have gotten a vote on the House floor has passed.
If legislation is the art of compromise, these four failed us.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
